Hardly. I have a huge fabric/pattern collection, and needed a halfway decent way of organizing them. Like a lot of garment seamstresses, I needed a way to bring swatches with me to the fabric store. But with a fabric collection of over 220 different pieces of fabric, I needed something far more "organized" than a stack of swatches on a binder ring. So... I used the whole binder! This idea extended to my patterns as well, so I could reference it to make sure I didn't buy a duplicate (I've done that before. xD)

That's the table of contents for the "Patterns" binder. It has a table of all the patterns we have, arranged by maker and number, and then it's divided by type of pattern (Clothing, Costuming, Home Decor and Crafting (for things like stuffed animals and bags))

What one of the pattern pages looks like. Room for size information (in case we have more than one size range) and comments regarding the make-up or plans of a certain pattern (you can sort of make out some of my notes)

The sheer thick-itude of the "Fabric" binder (about two inches of swatches and info). You can see my lame attempt at segregating different fabric samples. I should probably make a table of contents, but currently they're in there by content, and then sorted by weave.

One of my favorite pages, and a good example of the info that comes with every swatch. The Tag # (every cut of fabric has a tag with a number that corresponds to the swatch binder, and a entry in a more extensive database), content, width and yardage, whatever plans there might be for it, and comments. Generally the comments will include notations about stretch, or if multiple people have claims to the fabric, what it'll be used for, etc.

So what do you think guys? Is this a little over the top?

For reference, a pic of my fabric stash...

That closet's about... two feet deep by about six feet wide and eight feet tall.

Now the wintertime is coming,The windows are filled with frost.I went to tell everybody,But I could not get across.Well, I wanna be your lover, baby,I don't wanna be your boss.Don't say I never warned youWhen your train gets lost.

Ooh. Most lovely. And if I was a true seamstress/had fabric that was in big enough piece to be stable, I'd do the same! I think it's a magnificent idea (although I have nearly every other thing in my house that could use organizing organized in binders, and make 1-5 lists of "things to do" in different capacities every day... ha. So I'm a little tedious. But still very very messy. You're stash even looks marvellously organized!)

Ooh. Most lovely. And if I was a true seamstress/had fabric that was in big enough piece to be stable, I'd do the same! I think it's a magnificent idea (although I have nearly every other thing in my house that could use organizing organized in binders, and make 1-5 lists of "things to do" in different capacities every day... ha. So I'm a little tedious. But still very very messy. You're stash even looks marvellously organized!)

Definitely AWESOME!!! I so want to be that organized someday! You are my new role model of fabric organizing! I just recently got all of my scrapbooking in order, I really need to do something like this! I just went to a $1 fabric sale and came home with almost $200.00 worth! I don't even know what I"m gonna do with some of it, but I just couldn't stand to leave it in the store! You truly are genius!

Definitely AWESOME!!! I so want to be that organized someday! You are my new role model of fabric organizing! I just recently got all of my scrapbooking in order, I really need to do something like this! I just went to a $1 fabric sale and came home with almost $200.00 worth! I don't even know what I"m gonna do with some of it, but I just couldn't stand to leave it in the store! You truly are genius!

Holy crap! $1 fabric! I would KILL for a sale like that! Even with my Hancock's closing, we don't have deals that good!

Oh my goodness! I LOVE YOU!Last night I was staring at my various stashes, and I was wondering "How the hell am I going to organize this?!" and then I tried to come up with different systems but none of them seemed to be worthwhile to do, but this is amazing.

Oh my goodness! I LOVE YOU!Last night I was staring at my various stashes, and I was wondering "How the hell am I going to organize this?!" and then I tried to come up with different systems but none of them seemed to be worthwhile to do, but this is amazing.

years ago when I had a small amount of fabric I had this nice little rack that it was all stacked on and it was so nice to touch and look at and then one day I reached for some fabric and a crummy little mouse had been playing in my fabric. He didn't eat any, just left evidence that he'd been enjoying my fabric, so now I keep it all in nice mouse proof containers. And if I find a mouse in my house I will fire all 13 of my cats(they're not all in the house). I really love the way your fabric is organized.

years ago when I had a small amount of fabric I had this nice little rack that it was all stacked on and it was so nice to touch and look at and then one day I reached for some fabric and a crummy little mouse had been playing in my fabric. He didn't eat any, just left evidence that he'd been enjoying my fabric, so now I keep it all in nice mouse proof containers. And if I find a mouse in my house I will fire all 13 of my cats(they're not all in the house). I really love the way your fabric is organized.

That's the risk I currently take with my fabric stash. But, we're fairly infestation free (to the best of my knowledge), so I'm not too worried.

Love your idea! I've done some of it but you went the extra mile. You might consider getting a computer geek (or a dot com like www.wildginger.com) to design a computer software package to do your organizing then sell the software. It could be a big money maker! I would certainly buy something like that and save the time and trouble of copying, writing, etc. You could also scan your fabric in or glue it in if you want to keep the binders (and feel the fabric like I love to do), whatever your little heart desires. Great work!

That is amazing! I have my fabric organized in my storage cabinet (alas, it's only enough for a storage cabinet), but I'd love to be able to carry it around, so to speak. I actually went through my fabrics again the other day and forgot I even had some of the stuff I've stashed! I think while I'm at work tomorrow I'll design some templates along these lines...